Newsletter – 18 January

Japari: The School Slow Learners Need in Johannesburg “You know the deal. You can’t speed up to help the gifted kids. You can’t slow down to help the slower ones.” – Scott Voss, played by Kevin James, in Here Comes the Boom. There is a category of students who are at a higher risk of […]

What Type of Child is Suitable for Remedial Education at Japari? Many children don’t achieve their best results in traditional school environments. These are the children we at Japari want to see excelling. But which children can consider Japari as an option? If your child is battling with a mainstream educational institution, we’d love to […]

The support that remedial learners need to become leaders of the future Remedial learners have often faced years of failure. Academically they have probably only known struggle and bad marks. Often they would have encountered mocking from more able students. This can range to gentle teasing to outright bullying. All this usually leads to low […]

Crossing the line: How Parents are Intimidating Teachers Parents are more involved than ever in their children’s day-to-day education. This is a good thing. Parents should take an active interest in how their kids are doing at school. But there’s a dark side to this. There are parents that assume that they can dictate to […]

“Sonia Machanick (15 June 1925 – 12 November 1977) was a South African medical doctor, author and educational psychologist who pioneered new methods of teaching children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties. She founded Japari School,[1] a special school in Johannesburg that provides education for children who struggle to thrive in the mainstream education system. She wrote […]

Welcome to Japari School: Therapy and Assessment Centre! Parents are often reluctant to consider that their children might have a learning problem. This is absolutely understandable. For teachers, one of the hardest situations is suggesting that a child could have a learning challenge. No one should dismiss a teacher’s experience. Teachers who have worked […]

Why choosing a remedial school is better than choosing a mainstream school’s learning support centre It’s no secret that mainstream schooling is to a large extent not meeting children’s learning needs. The scores in maths and science are terrible. South Africa’s schooling is in dire straits. Private schools do see a better pass rate for […]

Thriving with Sensory Processing Issues – Schooling that Meets the Needs of Afflicted Children Imagine that wearing clothes can be so uncomfortable that you refuse to get dressed. Coming into contact with other people can be so disturbing that you crawl under tables to be alone. The idea of someone brushing past your elbow is […]

Remedial Education and the Special Needs Child As we have seen, there is a great need for remedial education, and not only in South Africa. Children struggling in the areas of maths and reading need the extra attention immediately. The longer that the child falls behind, the less likely they are to catch up. For […]

Touching your world: Fine motor skills Babies are arguably born with the least amount of inborn instincts of any creatures on earth. While a baby calf can stand within hours of being born, it takes a baby months to learn to do the same. Some suggest this instinctual “blank-slate” gives us an incredible capacity to […]